2 Ways to Patch Knee Holes in Jeans

My 9 year old son is always getting holes in his jeans. I can extend their life by patching them, but then the patches get holes and I have to patch the patches, lol. 

 These pants were already patched once, then got a hole above the patch. If the pants still fit really well, I'll do an iron on patch, but if they are getting small, they become cut-offs.

These pants were too short, but still fit in the waist, so they became cut-offs.

I saved their legs to make patches for the other jeans.

The Zig Zag Patch

1. First you have to fit the very small pant leg onto the sewing machine. After a lot of bunching and pulling, I got this one on.

2. Then you take your denim patch that you cut from the cut-offs and slide it under. Always cut it twice as big to be sure you have enough.

3. Set your sewing machine to the widest zig zag you can with a small length, then go crazy all over the place with your zig zags, pressing the reverse button often.

4. Turn the pants inside out and see how you did! My patch always moves around when I first start which is why I cut it extra large.

5. Cut the extra off.

6. Patch complete! I can already tell this one isn't going to hold very long, but hopefully it will last a few months.

The Easy Iron-on Patch

For the pants that get a hole after I have already done a zig zag patch, I use this iron-on adhesive I got at Joanns. I paid $2.00 for a roll big enough to do at least 100 patches.

All you do is cut out some denim and adhesive paper, then iron.

I thought the zig zag patches were "cool" kind of like the distressing that some brands do on purpose.

However, after spending a lot of time and frustration zig zagging several of my son's jeans and then doing the iron-on patches in 1 easy step, my son said that he likes the iron-on ones the most. Kids.

How do you patch jeans? I'd love to hear your tips and link them here, so drop me a comment!